


Flowers In Her Hair

by RobinLorin



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Gen, Self Care, Slice of Life, Women Being Women
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-17 01:18:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14177451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobinLorin/pseuds/RobinLorin
Summary: She caught sight of herself in the polished mirror, her forehead wrinkled and her cheeks curved downward in a frown of concentration. She frowned at herself harder, exaggerating the unattractive qualities, seeing how her face looked when she wasn’t dimpling at her reflection. All the while her hands worked methodically, creating a garden at the back of her head.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Prompted by [trautkeinenartigenkindern](http://trautkeinenartigenkindern.tumblr.com/) on tumblr.

Though its surface was clear, the gilded edges of Constance’s mirror were cracked and flaking. Silver peeked from underneath the thin gold. Constance’s mother had given it to her when she had married, as her mother had given it to her on her wedding day. 

It was a testament to Constance’s marriage: the careful weighing of pride and need, and the quiet acceptance of a daughter’s duty. It was also a testament of the women of Constance’s family: resilient and sentimental. Proud enough to pass a cheap mirror down generations instead of gifting an expensive new one.

Constance might have chafed at this treatment once, but now she was older. She understood what her mother and grandmother before her had each come to understand.  

Constance pinned the last of her curls in place, turning her head every which way to make sure she’d not missed a strand. She had only seen this style on a woman at the marketplace, and though Constance would gladly have approached her in friendship to ask about it, the woman had vanished by the time Constance had haggled down the price for a half a duck to her satisfaction. 

Eyes still fixed on her hair, her fingers nimbly found and separated the bouquet of Gourdon Flowers she’d picked that morning by the river. 

The riverbank was always quiet in the morning - the boats gone by then, and all folks up and about were at the market - and Constance could find a place to sit in the shade of the tree. Only for a few minutes, before her purchases spoiled, but for a few reliably peaceful moments each day when she could close her eyes and hear nothing but the chatter of cicadas and feel the sun on her face. 

The grass was thick there, and flowers spread out beneath the broad branches of willows thicker than the most luxurious carpets in the palace. Constance picked a few each day and brought them home for the vase on her kitchen table. A bunch, or three, she spared for this. 

Constance carefully threaded each short-stemmed bloom through her intricate braids. She took care not to crush the flowers, caging each one with her fingers until she could push the stem through the twist. Then the next one, and the next, until the entire bouquet was entwined in her hair. 

She caught sight of herself in the polished mirror, her forehead wrinkled and her cheeks curved downward in a frown of concentration. She frowned at herself harder, exaggerating the unattractive qualities, seeing how her face looked when she wasn’t dimpling at her reflection. All the while her hands worked methodically, creating a garden at the back of her head. 

Finally the last of the flowers were sewn into her hair, and Constance let her hands rest. She arched her neck and shook out her shoulders. It was barely eight o’clock. Her meal needed preparing; the laundry had to be seamed and then taken to be washed; she had half a dozen errands to run and another half dozen to do in the house. 

But she had taken this time for herself, to sit in front of her well-loved mirror and twine flowers into her hair. The decoration wasn’t for her husband, though she had been setting them in as long as they had been married; not was it for her lover, bright and blooming as he may be. It wasn’t for the woman in the marketplace, or any of the people Constance would see today as she ran her errands. 

The flowers were for Constance, as the mirror was for Constance. Strong, enduring, and beautiful despite the inevitable effects of time; all for her, to enjoy before she did her work. She would not see them again once she left her mirror, until it was evening and she let the wilted flowers tumble out of her braids; but knowing they were there would be a balm to her coarsened spirit as each task wore on her body and mind. 

Constance examined her reflection in her mirror once more, enjoying the peek of blue above her left ear. Then she smiled, and dimpled at her reflection, and stood to start the day’s work. 


	2. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Constance is the only homeowner in her new marriage. She makes her house into a new home.

The air outside the house was thick and humid, the pressure of a summer thunderstorm building since midmorning. Constance was sweating in thick drops that rolled down her back and slowly stained her oldest shift. Her house was marginally cooler than the rest of the city, but Constance hadn’t noticed for hours, since she had started moving the furniture around.

The kitchen table had been the first to go. She wasn’t getting rid of it, no - but with that wall knocked down so nicely by Porthos the other day, she had the perfect opportunity to drag the table into the middle of the suddenly widened room. 

Then the sideboard, of course, had to follow; and suddenly she had much more space for preparing food, so she dragged the extra bedside table from one of the empty lodgers’ rooms up the stairs and fit it neatly into the corner of the kitchen.

The dresser that had been a wedding gift from Jacques’ family came straight out of the master bedroom and into the nicest spare bedroom in the house. The nicely carved cedar she didn’t mind; it was the constant, mind-dulling memory of seeing that pattern every day of her married life that she needed to clear away. 

She had similar plans for the drapes in the sitting room - too heavy, too prone to collecting dust, she’d always thought - though those would have to wait until she found replacements. It wouldn’t do to expose the inner workings of her house to her neighbors any more than the drama of the Musketeers already had. 

For now, she contented herself with scrubbing the kitchen until it shone. Jacques had never entered the kitchen unless he was haranguing her about something or other. It had always been her hideaway, as much as any room could in a house that was owned, and could be invaded at any time, by her husband. 

She had kept her space tidy and pleasant to look at. Now she wore her fingers raw in the effort to create a new space, to be shared with her husband whom she would always invite into her -  _their_  - most precious home. 

She and d’Artagnan had kissed for the first time in this very kitchen, in front of the window with its midday light streaming down upon them both. Here Fleur had unwittingly told Constance of the triumph of Constance’s “meddling with matters outside her judgment,” as Jacques would have said. 

Constance had sheltered runaways and criminals in this kitchen, in defiance of her late husband, and she had found her true spirit beneath all the false layers of what she thought she’d known of herself. 

She had left her safe kitchen for the court and had been threatened and chased and arrested and nearly killed; she had clung to that true self and strengthened it until it could swing a sword as surely as any man. 

And now she was a married woman again, in her own kitchen once more, with the walls broken open and the sunlight gleaming over every surface that could shine. 

Today, the house was silent but for her occasional grunts of effort and less occasional swearing. Tomorrow it would be full, and perhaps once or twice again before the Musketeers rode to war. Then it would be quiet - for months, or years, before d’Artagnan and his regiment came home again. 

But there was no one hovering over her shoulder now; no constantly intruding husband who limited her social calls. Constance could fill up her home with visitors; she could invite Fleur to tea and ask how her studies were progressing; she could seek out Flea again and harry her into carrying Constance’s fresh loaves of bread back to the Court of Miracles; she could take in runaways and criminals, and folks who were a bit of both. 

Constance had plans for her home. 


End file.
